EC/MC/DC General Discussion

[vampire hunter D]

Try asking in the Aske Shouri, Giz and Dave thread.

[Azrael]

Wow, Bob. That's downright...logical.

[thrythlind]

You know, given that Dangerously Chloe is in the same world as Eerie Cuties, Magic Chicks and Vampire Cheerleaders....magic and the supernatural are public knowledge...I wonder how many of his problems Teddy could solve with the two cheerleaders by noting there's a well-meaning succubus at his house.

[TBeholder]

1) VC/PMS is a branch - i.e. *C verse is canon in it, but the opposite wasn't stated.VC/PMS is a branch. I.e. *C verse is canon in it, but the opposite was never stated.
2) I don't think provoking a lynch mob to visit one's own house counts as "solving problems".

[Gotoh]

*continued from discussion, here*

No. I basically said "she could have noticed, but she didn't". That's not contradictory at all.

That isn't what you said, I even highlighted it and underlined the contradiction in the statement. Even if you had said that, you still haven't answered how she was supposed to tell something was amiss when there was no discernible indication that there was.

Nope, not at all.

That's hardly what I'd call being in a trance and is just as easily explained by Faith's popularity.

The problem with Faith can be summed up in five words: "She Believes Her Own Hype" Students, teachers, "even her enemies" eventually fall before her. She never noticed anything was was off because she's Faith Abbot dammit! She's just THAT awesome.

There's a reason for that:

She really is that tough! She didn't get through her last eight combat quizzes on popularity alone! Tiff isn't lying in her assessment!

I know some of you just cannot wait for something to come along and flatten Faith like aluminum foil, but you don't expect us to make it EASY do you? Her confidence in her abilities is at least mostly justified.

See that?

Oh, and since you brought up the fight between her and Layla, here's what he had to say about that too:

Basically, this is exactly right. Faith was introduced as the strongest esper in the school's history, a school where people train to fight, where they learn other things that help them fight, and pause for recreational activities like breastplate raids, where they ALSO fight. She's basically the psychic morally grey Wonder Woman. Layla's not exactly a pushover, but she's had a relatively easy life, and has never before even faced a slayer who consistently wanted to kill her. Even if Layla were well trained for combat, the odds would heavily favor Faith. As it is, anything resembling a fair fight was going to end more or less like this.

That's why she believes her own hype, because she knows she can live up to it.

If you were a trainee butcher, someone who worked with knives (and saws) all day every day, but kept accidentally slashing something as you were holding the knife blade-side out, wouldn't you be responsible for not noticing?

Not only that, I'd also be careless for mishandling a blade that way. There's just one problem with your analogy: I'd be able to see what I was doing wrong, because someone (most likely, my employer) would point out all the damage I was causing.

There was no way to point out what Faith was doing, because it couldn't be seen. If Tiffany, or Cerise, walked into a courtroom to present a case against Faith, what would they use for evidence? What could they show the judge and jury? And if they questioned Faith on the stand about it, her answer would likely be, "how was I supposed to know?"

[Schmorgluck]

Faith is a very righteous person. She has character flaws, she aknowledges them, and she explicitly voiced that she'd like to work on being a better person with Tiff as a model. She was hit pretty hard by the discovery of what exactly she had been doing. I don't think she'd dodge her responsibility. If there's some kind of trial and she has an advocate, she can be talked into pleading ignorance, but not as an exculpation, only as a mitigation.

Something that came to my mind recently about Faith: in the Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley, there's a novel titled "Two To Conquer". I will spoiler the rest in case someone would like to read the book. In that novel, Bard Di Asturien uses his psychic influence powers to force himself on many women, by manipulating their desires. He sees no ill in this because in his view it isn't rape since he doesn't use violence. Later in the novel a woman he treats that way unlocks his empathic powers, making him fully understand how the women he used felt. He's devastated by the discovery. Are there people around there who have read the book? What do you think of the comparison? How does Bard Di Asturien compare to Faith Abbot?

[Gotoh]

Faith is a very righteous person. She has character flaws, she aknowledges them, and she explicitly voiced that she'd like to work on being a better person with Tiff as a model.

I wouldn't go so far as to say she's righteous. She means well, but she dabbles in a lot of grey areas (like abusing presidential perks) because she genuinely doesn't see any reason why she shouldn't since there were certain allowances that came with her position. From her point of view, she's operating within the system and, as far as she knew, it wasn't hurting anybody. At least, until now.

She was hit pretty hard by the discovery of what exactly she had been doing. I don't think she'd dodge her responsibility. If there's some kind of trial and she has an advocate, she can be talked into pleading ignorance, but not as an exculpation, only as a mitigation.

Agreed here. That's why I've said there's a possibility that she may report what she's done to the faculty; essentially turning herself over to them.

Something that came to my mind recently about Faith: in the Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley, there's a novel titled "Two To Conquer". I will spoiler the rest in case someone would like to read the book. In that novel, Bard Di Asturien uses his psychic influence powers to force himself on many women, by manipulating their desires. He sees no ill in this because in his view it isn't rape since he doesn't use violence. Later in the novel a woman he treats that way unlocks his empathic powers, making him fully understand how the women he used felt. He's devastated by the discovery. Are there people around there who have read the book? What do you think of the comparison? How does Bard Di Asturien compare to Faith Abbot?

They're not the same. As you said, Bard Di Asturien purposely used his power to take advantage of those women. Faith didn't. As far as she was aware, the decision to sleep with her, or not, was always theirs. She even said that to Melissa: "Nothing's forced. We can be honest here."

She also said the same thing to Tiffany: "We'll take things slow. When you're ready, I'll make sure your first time is extra special."

At no point did she willfully use her power to make anyone sleep with her. If someone told her "no", or made it clear that they weren't interested, Faith left it alone and figured they'd either come around in time, or she'd try her luck with someone else.

The only similarity between what she and Bard Di Asturien did was that psychic powers were involved.

[Schmorgluck]

I didn't mean they are the same, just that there are points of comparisons. Faith's moment of realization is less violent than Bard's because what she did is milder, but I'm looking forward to seeing if it has lasting effects on her character. She may come to better appreciate the very few people who genuinely love her: Sandi, Callista, Tiffany (with reserves), and probably Ash (it may be more complicated).

[Gotoh]

*quote taken from here*

Faith was a chaotically evil rapist.

No, she wasn't.

As an example, Faith sees rape as wrong, sick, and evil. Notice that she never strains to produce a sexual response in someone else, not even in Tiffany, not like she's straining in the latest installment. She views all her sexual behavior as seduction.

[Bambikles]

Yeah, but she's deadly wrong and delusional in that. Putting a psychic link to almost all the girls to force/induce them to like/love her is not so much different than using date rate drug, or getting her conquests drunk. There always been an unhealthy feel towards Faith emprise and "seduction. Faith is a womanizer, and she's deadly wrong in assuming than calling her out about this is slut-shaming. What is despicable from a man is also despicable from a woman. She does'nt even have the excuse to be conscious of it and feel that it's wrong. She was proud of it.

[Gotoh]

Yeah, but she's deadly wrong and delusional in that. Putting a psychic link to almost all the girls to force/induce them to like/love her is not so much different than using date rate drug, or getting her conquests drunk.

Which is glossing over two things: 1.) it wasn't deliberate, nor was she aware that was happening. 2.) no one was being mind-controlled.

And if she was delusional, so's Tony Starrk. We were told several times that she had superstar status at Artemis and she's attractive, so she never had reason to doubt her own appeal. She even said as much when Tiffany tried to slut-shame her. Her exact words were: "I can't help being popular."

Likewise, she said she wasn't apologizing for liking sex and she's right. She shouldn't have to apologize for something she enjoys doing. It's her body and her decision to be with whoever she choses, so long as they give their consent and they're age appropriate.

There always been an unhealthy feel towards Faith emprise and "seduction. Faith is a womanizer, and she's deadly wrong in assuming than calling her out about this is slut-shaming. What is despicable from a man is also despicable from a woman. She does'nt even have the excuse to be conscious of it and feel that it's wrong. She was proud of it.

Having sex isn't illegal. To the best of her knowledge, up to that point, she had done nothing wrong. Which is why she was just as stunned as the others were when she finally learned the truth. But, until that moment, she never had reason to suspect that her powers were effecting the other students.

She knows when she's using them consciously and deliberately, she had no way of knowing that her powers could act on their own; much less, without her knowledge.

[The Nick]

Yeah, but she's deadly wrong and delusional in that. Putting a psychic link to almost all the girls to force/induce them to like/love her is not so much different than using date rate drug, or getting her conquests drunk. There always been an unhealthy feel towards Faith emprise and "seduction. Faith is a womanizer, and she's deadly wrong in assuming than calling her out about this is slut-shaming. What is despicable from a man is also despicable from a woman. She does'nt even have the excuse to be conscious of it and feel that it's wrong. She was proud of it.

This presumes anybody Faith so much as has a psychic link with automatically is forced against their will to love her. On several occasions, she's used psychic powers to beat people up or communicate long-distance, neither of which had the side-effect of making somebody act against their will. If anything, it only annoyed those particular victims.

Doing things to alter people's perception of you isn't so wrong. It's called 'putting your best foot forward'. Dressing up nice or giving gifts or speaking in a particular tone of voice. While some could argue it's not necessarily true ("You don't usually dress up so nicely!", etc.) or 'being honest', she's definitely not just jumping around and mind-puppeting people into doing whatever she wants or changing their entire memories so as to rewrite their personhood. While some could argue there is some level of wrongness to some of her acts (a person, hypothetically, could say that they don't want a particular person to interact with them whatsoever, perhaps not even be in the same area as them), to immediately escalate to the assumptions of one of the absolute highest levels of crime is unwarranted.

[CFT]

That's a very good point there, actually. From the viewpoint of our genes (who through evolution developed mechanisms to "evaluate" the best candidates for mating, those that would ensure we would have strong and healthy descendants that would propagate those same genes through the generations), every time someone puts on a perfume, or make-up*, or wears fancy clothes and jewelry, or dyes their hair, or has aesthetic plastic surgery, etc. it's exactly the same as "lying" about themselves in a conversation (say boasting that they are very rich when they aren't, etc.) specifically in order to affect the others' perception of them. And yet we usually don't call that behavior amoral (except that Chinese guy who suspected his wife was cheating on him because they were both very good-looking and all their kids were all "very ugly"**, only to find out that his wife had a totally face-changing plastic surgery before they first met!). Even some direct lies said in the attempt of making the best first impression to a potential mate are usually forgiven by all parties involved (and some are not, of course).
*the legendary beauty of ancient queens, like Nefertiti of Egypt, were probably just the result of them being some of the first humans who used make-up (eye-shadows and other) and perfumes, wowing everyone who met them.
**calling his own kids "too ugly" though, what a bastard.

So, in a world where psychic powers are real, if Faith is just making herself more desirable (even to a very great degree) to others she's not doing even something remotely wrong (she's less in the wrong that someone who puts on a perfume or make-up, because -unlike them- that effect comes from Faith's natural ability not from something anyone can "buy" to look artifically better)

On the other hand though, in Artemis Academy, we were presented with an unusually large number of girls higher up in the Kinsey scale that it is statistically observed in the real world, and it is also a "fact" that no matter how you "present" yourself you can't alter someone's sexual orientation (you can't wear a perfume that would make straight men around you "gay" for you, for example), so: if that statistical anomaly can be attributed to Faith's influence (rather than being an amazing coincidence or just explained because the story takes place in the Giz-verse, lol) then I believe we have a serious moral problem on our hands. And Faith would agree with that.

[Azrael]

A Very Happy B-Day, Cassandra.

[Gotoh]

Is it? In that case, happy birthday from me, as well.